Substitute Teacher
by silentwolf111
Summary: In which Alfred F. Jones teaches AP U.S. History for a day (and most certainly does not rewrite it in the process).


**A/N:**

 **Hello, everyone!**

 **So I've recently gotten into this thing called Hetalia… okay, that's totally a lie. It's more like I've become** _ **completely obsessed**_ **with it. And, after watching some hilarious conspiracy documentaries and seeing some of my fellow Americans totally mess up the history of their own country… Well…** _ **this**_ **happened.**

 **But, before we can get on to the story, there's of course the usual disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own this beautiful yet crazy anime. See, if I did, then I assure you that all my ridiculous headcanons along with** _ **multiple**_ **different pairings would have totally become canon by now... Yeah, you know what, it's actually kind of a good thing that I don't own Hetalia.**

 **Oh, and one last thing: Much of the, uh,** _ **"history"**_ **– if you can even call it that – that's described here is completely and totally** _ **historically inaccurate**_ **(sadly). But, well, I think you'll see that for yourself soon enough... :)**

 **Hope you enjoy the story!**

 **Peace out,**

 **~silentwolf111**

* * *

.oOo.

 _~ Substitute Teacher ~_

.oOo.

* * *

The class was buzzing with chatter as the students entered the room to find that their teacher wasn't seated at his desk like he usually was; it was evident that the teacher was indeed absent that day, and this made the class curious, since that didn't happen very often.

But, if one were to pay close attention to the conversations that were taking place throughout the room, one would find that these conversations weren't pertaining to _why_ the teacher wasn't there – the students were a bit more interested in just _who_ the sub was going to be.

See, the students could recall various instances of… well, quite _peculiar_ substitutes that had taught the class in the past. Some of which included a rather angry man who had a strong Italian accent as well as a strange addiction to tomatoes, a self-obsessed man whose appearance could only be described as "albino", or – the students' personal favorite – the guy who slept all hour long while hugging a stuffed cat, which allowed the students to basically do as they pleased.

Just as the chatter in the room grew to its maximum level, the door opened, causing the noise to instantly die down as students craned their necks to see who the replacement would be _this_ time.

To be fair, at least this guy looked pretty normal; blonde hair, blue eyes, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and wearing what appeared to be a World War II bomber jacket over a t-shirt and casual pair of jeans. He looked surprisingly young – couldn't have been more than a couple years fresh out of college – and the only particularly peculiar thing about his appearance was an odd little tuft of hair that, for some reason, refused to stay down.

Well, at least it was more normal than having bright red eyes or a gravity-defying curl that stuck out the side of his head.

"Howdy, kids!" the newcomer greeted with a bright smile as he made his way to the front of the room. "I'm Alfred, Alfred F. Jones, but you can call me Mr. Jones! And, if you haven't already guessed, I'm going to be your substitute for today!"

The students silently watched the energetic man as he wrote his name on the whiteboard, underlining it twice and not hesitating to add a smiley face at the end. He then walked over to the teacher's desk and removed his jacket, draping it over the chair before he plunked himself down unceremoniously. Picking up the pieces of paper lying on the desk, he shuffled through the notes left for him by the teacher.

"Hmm, AP U.S. History, huh?" Mr. Jones asked. "Gotta say it's my first time teaching that! I'm usually more of an English kind of guy myself."

He let out a slight chuckle.

"Oh, man, you guys should've been there when I went to work in England for a couple years," he told the students. "Those guys were _horrible_ at English! I mean, they were using made-up words and spelling things wrong left and right! Like, come on, everyone knows that those delicious fried sticks are called 'fries' and the word 'color' doesn't have a 'u' in it! But I'll bet you're all way smarter than that, right?"

Several eyebrows went up in the room as the students found themselves questioning whether the man was really as normal as he had first appeared.

...Yeah, the answer to that was probably a resounding "no", wasn't it…

 _Typical._

"Anyway, yeah, AP U.S. History?" Mr. Jones grinned at the students. "It may be my first time teaching it, but don't worry; I'm kind of a _pro._ "

He clapped his hands together, making the students jump.

"Okay, well, enough about me; let's get started here! So, going off of these notes that your teacher kindly left for me, it looks like today we're going to be…"

The man suddenly squinted at the papers in front of him, an odd look of distaste on his face.

"... analyzing how patterns of exchange, markets, and private enterprise have developed on a wide scale and offering input on the development of historical thinking skills and the examination of commonly-seen trends throughout the history of the nation," he finished reading with a frown. "This stuff is a load of crap. You guys don't need to learn all of this!"

A student raised her hand, attracting the teacher's attention.

"Yeah, you."

"Um, actually, we kind of do," she said. "It's going to be on the AP exam, so we need to know it. Plus, it's in our textbook, too, and our teacher said that the book covers pretty much everything that's on the exam."

"Really?" Mr. Jones said, disbelief in his eyes. "Let me see that."

The student handed him the textbook sitting on her desk, and he took a second to flip through it, skimming the numerous pages before slamming the book shut and putting it back down.

"This is ridiculous," he said. "There's way too much junk in here than you really need to know!"

Another student raised his hand.

"So, then, what _do_ we need to know?" he questioned.

The teacher smiled and stood up, a moment of sudden inspiration coming to him.

"Good question," he said. "You know what, I think it's about time you guys learned what's _really_ important about American history. Forget the teacher's stupid plans – I'm going to teach you everything you need to know for the exam. Right now."

"Wait," a student said. "You're going to teach us all of U.S. History in one day?"

"You bet I am!" Mr. Jones replied happily. "I'll show you all that this stuff is just a piece of cake!"

The students exchanged glances around the room. Their teacher's proposition sounded… _interesting_ , for one. And definitely a bit far-fetched, too. But they would all be lying if they said they weren't curious as to what the man had to say.

"Okay, gather 'round, children," Mr. Jones said. "It's storytime! Today, I'm going to tell you all the story of our great nation: the United States of America."

He started pacing back and forth across the room as he began his lecture.

"Right! So first we've got Christopher Columbus," the man said. "He was this guy from Spain – or, wait, was it Mexico? Whatever, I guess it doesn't matter since they're basically the same thing anyway – but, yeah, Columbus! He sailed the ocean blue, in 1492! He was trying to get to India, but since America was in the way, he figured he might as well make a pit stop there, right?"

The students blinked in confusion. That wasn't exactly the way that they remembered it.

"So then Columbus found some Indians in America, and they became pretty cool friends," the teacher continued. "They ate feasts together all the time, and that's when we celebrated the first ever Thanksgiving! But then the French showed up, and those guys were all perverts, so of course the Indians didn't like them. That's why they went to war with them."

"Wait," a student interrupted. "The French didn't – "

"So," Mr. Jones said, completely ignoring the student. "During this whole time, keep in mind that America was really nothing more than a bunch of tiny colonies and stuff. But that all changed during the Revolutionary War! After the French perverts left and went to… uh, North Montana… then the British showed up!"

"Canada?" A student spoke up.

The teacher paused momentarily.

"Huh?"

"You said the French went to North Montana," the student said. "Don't you mean _Canada?"_

"Can o' the _what?"_

The student blinked.

"Wait, what?"

"That's what I just asked you!" the teacher said in confusion. "You should really try finishing your sentences next time."

The student gave him a weird look before shaking his head in submission.

"Never mind," he muttered.

Mr. Jones shrugged.

 _High schoolers… so immature._

"Anyway," he continued. "those British guys were basically like, 'Pip pip cheerio!' and tried their whole 'taxation without representation' deal, but we got back at them by dumping their disgusting tea straight into the Boston Harbor! That upset the British General Dumbledore, and he was like, 'Dude, this is blasphemy! This is madness!' – 'cause, you know, the guy _really_ liked his tea – and George Washington was all like, "No, dude! This. Is. _America!"_ And then he totally hardcore kicked Dumbledore right in the chest and pushed him into this huge well-thingy!"

"And that's how America was born," Mr. Jones finished, clasping his hands together with a bright grin. "Any questions so far?"

To his surprise, almost every single hand in the room went up.

Huh. He really thought he'd explained that well enough.

"You, with the red hoodie," he pointed to a student.

"This kind of seems vaguely familiar… In more ways than one," the student said with a doubtful expression.

"Well, duh, of course it's familiar! That's because it _happened,"_ Mr. Jones rolled his eyes. "Jeez, what are they teaching you guys…"

The man quickly glanced around the room and took note of the many other hands that were up.

"You know what," he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Let's save all the other questions 'til the end! Don't worry, I'll get to you guys eventually. But, for right now, I want to get back to the story!"

The students reluctantly put their hands down, and the teacher took this as a sign to continue.

"Okay! So, now, America's a nation," he explained. "And since we were such a _great_ nation, the British dudes totally got jealous and decided to try to defeat us _again_ in 1812! Man, they really tried hard; they allied with the North-Montanians, but those guys were pretty much useless, since they just kept apologizing all over the place whenever they killed people."

The students could only look at their teacher as they tried to comprehend the man's sheer ignorance.

"Anyway," he continued, "together they did crazy stuff like calling in their weird fairies and magic to help them burn the White House down! But, of course, they were no match for us peaceful Americans. And then, even after the war was freaking _over_ , they tried to attack us again! And we won, obviously. We crushed them so bad that they gave us the Alamo as tribute for our greatness!"

"But I thought the Alamo came from Mexi– " a student interjected.

"And then, even though we were such a great and powerful nation, things started getting kind of rough inside America," the man said, effectively ignoring the student once again. "You guys might remember this as the Civil War. It all began when some really mean white dudes in the South started being all arrogant! They thought they were the best in the whole world, so you know what they did? They took black people – specifically kids, between the ages of 12 and 18 – and threw them into an arena, and then they made them fight to the death! This, children, is called _slavery_."

At this point, it was clear that the man paid absolutely no attention to the stares and gawking looks that the students were sending his way.

"But, you know, us Northerners really hated slavery," Mr. Jones continued. "So we wrote the Declaration of Independence and separated from those mean Southerners. But we pulled through in the end when our faithful president Abraham Lincoln – along with his sidekick, Martin Luther King Jr. – took his rightful place as the Mockingjay while he whipped out his mighty bow and arrow and shot those dudes straight through the heart!

"Wait," another student said. "Are you sure all of this is true? I mean, aside from all the, uh… _Mockingjay_ stuff, I thought the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson during the _Revolutionary War,_ not the Civil War."

"Well, first of all, of _course_ this is all true," the teacher said in response, crossing his arms defiantly. "It's just basic history, you know, so it's kind of a shame that you guys don't know this stuff. And, as for the Declaration of Independence... Nope. Pretty sure it was during the Civil War."

"Then what about the one in the National Archives that's dated _July 4, 1776?"_

"Clearly forged," Mr. Jones said without hesitation, waving his hand in dismissal once again. "Now, moving on! It's time to talk about World War I!"

The teacher began pacing again as the class rolled their eyes, hesitantly waiting to see what he was going to say next.

"All right," he began once more. "So before World War I, we tried to close ourselves off in isolation, since we were afraid that other countries would see how amazing of a nation we were and get super jealous of our awesomeness and try to attack us. But, of course, our whole "out of sight, out of mind" isolation scheme didn't work; Germany somehow heard about our great victories, and they were all like, 'Bro. What the heck is this 'America' you speak of?' And they got so jealous of us that they started seeing us as a threat."

The man suddenly paused, eyebrows scrunched together.

"Wow," he said thoughtfully. "Now that I think of it, that's kind of how pretty much every war we were ever in got started… I guess our awesomeness just can't be contained!"

He then tilted his head to the side with a shrug.

"Either that, or the other countries really need to _chill._ "

As the students regarded him with odd looks (which, of course, went unnoticed by the teacher), Mr. Jones shook his head briefly to clear his thoughts and clapped his hands together again.

"Anyway!" he continued. "But, yeah, we were totally seen as a threat. Germany basically started taking out our ships and stuff, so we creamed them. Oh, and during this whole time, Britain and France were hiding away in fear, waiting for us to be the heroes and save the day! Which we totally did! And, after we won the war and saved everyone else's butts, we were on _fire!_ It was the Roaring 20s, and everything was great! Heck, we were the United States of freaking _America,_ and we were unstoppable!"

The man's wild gestures (which had sent a wave of soft giggles throughout the classroom) suddenly ceased as he shrugged nonchalantly.

"Well, at least until some stuff happened in the 30s, and everyone basically became poor," he said. "But let's not talk about that, since that time period was a really depressing part of our history. That's why it's called the Great Depression, you know."

A student raised her hand slightly.

"But I thought a depression was an economi–"

"So, then," Mr. Jones cut in, paying no attention to the girl, "you guys remember how we totally beat up Germany in World War I, right? Well, they went all Arnold Schwarzenegger on us, and were like, _'I'll be back.'_ And they weren't lying; they _did_ come back, in the form of Hitler and his crazy Nazi dudes during World War II! They basically started being really mean to the Jews; you know, that whole 'you can't sit with us!' type of thing. But, then, along came America to save the day! In an awesome surprise attack, we singlehandedly took out that Hitler dude once and for all!"

"But didn't Hitler commit suici–" another student attempted to interject.

"Yeah, those Nazi guys were really creepy," Mr. Jones continued. "The rumor has it that, every time they fought at night, they'd start sparkling– like, actually _sparkling_ – as soon as it was twilight!"

A nearby student blinked.

"So you're telling us that World War II was basically a German sparkle party…?" she said, confusion laced in her voice.

The teacher beamed.

"Yeah!" he said enthusiastically. "Now you're getting it!"

The rest of the class had to resist the urge to facepalm.

And, believe them, it was _hard._

"After that," Mr. Jones said, "we went into Japan, and totally started kicking their butts! But those Japanese dudes were such sore losers, so they started killing us off. Like, not cool, man! So then we bombed them. Twice."

"Um," another student said. "I think there was a little more to it than tha–"

"And so we won the war, again!" Mr. Jones said. "Once again, America comes out on top! But it still wasn't over yet, since now we had to deal with Russia – ugh, don't even get me _started_ on Russia. Those commies were being super creepy, so we basically told them to back off and take their commie influence somewhere else! But then Stalin got really mad at us, so he went to Siberia, got a bucket of ice, and dropped it on Truman's head! That's why it's called the Cold War."

The class had absolutely no words left at this point. They had learned that it was pretty much impossible to try to argue with the teacher, so they had instead simply accepted the fact that he wasn't going to listen and chose to just sit back, entertained.

"Meanwhile, there was some stuff going on between the black and white people again," the man explained. "This dude named Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream one night when he was asleep, so for some reason he wrote it all down and decided to tell everyone about it. It was a huge hit and basically won black people freedom and stuff, but, personally, I'm just surprised he remembered it all! I usually forget my dreams when I wake up."

Collective sighs of exasperation filled the room, but they may as well have been nonexistent since the teacher chose to ignore them completely.

"Wait," a student said. "Didn't you say that Martin Luther King, Jr. was Abraham Lincoln's sidekick during the Civil War?"

"Yup!" Mr. Jones replied. "That's him!"

"But, then, how is that possible?" the student asked. "He couldn't have been alive that long."

The teacher's facial expression suddenly grew very interesting, as his bright smile twisted into a sly smirk.

" _Aliens."_

The students all snuck looks at each other, each one of their faces conveying the exact same thought:

 _You have got to be kidding me._

"But, yeah," Mr. Jones said, his smile returning once more. "After that, some random stuff happened, like the whole hippie gimmick. That was kind of weird, if you ask me… Oh, and we were still hating those Russian commies throughout this entire time. And then, in the late part of the 19th century, we won the Vietnam War!"

"Hold on," a student protested. "Didn't that happen in the late _20th_ century?"

After a brief moment of silence, the student suddenly scrunched up her eyebrows and blinked.

"And, wait, we didn't win the Vietnam War…"

The teacher tilted his head to the side and looked at the girl who had just spoken up.

"Hey," he asked. "What's your name, kid?"

"Cameron."

"Cameron," Mr. Jones laughed and shook his head. "Oh dear, _dear_ Cameron…"

Then, the teacher's expression suddenly grew deadly serious as he narrowed his eyes, lowered his voice, and leaned in further to the girl until he was eye-level with her.

" _That's just what they_ want _you to think."_

And the sudden seriousness was gone just as soon as it came as the man sprung back up, happily grinning as if nothing had just happened.

" _Anyway,"_ he continued. "Yeah! So then Russia finally collapsed in the 80's – wait, no, 90's… Yeah, 90's. Those commie dudes were finally gone once and for all – well, kind of, but not really, but we're not going to talk about that – and America was officially the hero of the world! Well, I mean, not that we weren't before, though."

The teacher walked back up to the podium and cleared his throat.

"And here we are now," he said. "The modern world! The world of today! The world where World War III is totally going to break out between scary alien dudes and Lincoln's forces of dead guys from the Civil War that have been resurrected as zombies – I mean, I should know; I saw it in a _documentary_. And everyone knows those things are totally _legit_. But, never fear, for the heroes are here! While the rest of the world is under attack from the aliens' green plasma-laser-death-gun-ray thingies, you can bet America will jump in and save the day, just like we did so many times in the past!"

"And that's it," Mr. Jones finished. "That's the story of our country, the great United States of America! See, didn't I tell you this stuff was easy? I'll bet you guys _totally_ feel prepared for the AP exam now!"

Looking at the numerous pairs of wide eyes that were staring back at him wordlessly, the teacher gave a small chuckle.

 _Would you look at that… they're just so shocked by the truth that they're speechless!_

The man's thoughts were cut off when a loud ringing noise cut through the air.

Surprised, he glanced at the clock to find that class was indeed over.

 _Wow. That was fast._

"Well, that's my cue," he said, throwing on his jacket. "Gotta go! Man, I wish I could be there to see the look on your teacher's face when he sees that you guys have basically learned the entire curriculum in a single _day… "_

As the teacher left the room and the bell still rang, the students could only remain sitting silently at their desks, trying to wrap their heads around what exactly had just happened.

And to think they had thought that, for once, this substitute would be sane… They really should have known that he'd turn out just as crazy as the others.

 _So much for a day of normalcy._

Instead of objecting, though, the students looked around the room at each other and simply shrugged, amused looks on their faces.

Well, there was always next time, right?

* * *

 **End Note:**

 **And, well, that's it! Now you've successfully received your daily dose of _"education"_! **

**Like it? Hate it? Let me know in the box below!**

 **Thanks for reading, everyone, and stay awesome! :)**


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